Max Henstell

Hacker, Maker, Artist

I'm a hacker, maker, and artist based in Portland, Oregon. I primarily work with hardware and software, although I have also significant experience in metal fabrication, machining, manufacturing, and 3D design. I am currently looking to branch out and expand my fabrication skills on large-scale art projects.

For Fun

Under Construction

Creator • 2018

Under Construction is series of wooden construction markers - the kind you might see on the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere - with the slowly-flashing yellow light on top. The lights communicate to take on different patterns and respond to human presence, making for an eerie experience. Under Construction was funded in part by a generous grant by SDCAP for the 2018 YOUtopia festival in San Diego, California.

Creator • 2015 — 2016

Death & Taxis was a seven foot long, coffin-shaped art car painted to look like a New York City taxi. I designed it in Solidworks, then cut and welded it together from scratch. It utilized a 14hp electrical motor and steer-by-wire controls, along with a 200 Ah battery bank with onboard generator for charging. The car was disassembled and flat-packed for shipping from Brooklyn to Nevada and was reassembled at Burning Man 2016.

Co-Creator • 2012 — Present

One of the early large-scale Arduino-based LED sculptures. Domestar was a 16-foot (now 30-foot) custom-fabricated PVC dome covered in 6,400 individually-addressable RGB LEDs, controlled and mapped via custom Processing software. I did electrical and firmware design and implementation, as well as structure fabrication and Processing/C++ work.